The NFL is doing everything it can to keep a portion of the long-running Brian Flores lawsuit in arbitration rather than allow it to proceed to open court. The league’s efforts in that regard fell short with respect to Flores’ claims against the Broncos, Giants, and Texans (“BGT”), and its appellate avenues as to those teams – which included an attempt to secure United States Supreme Court review – have been exhausted.
The same is not true of Flores’ claims as to the Dolphins, Cardinals, and Titans (“DCT”). Because the league’s arbitration-related efforts regarding those clubs were denied after the BGT endeavors, this ever-evolving proceeding has spawned two separate appellate timelines.
The trial court vehemently denied the NFL’s recent motion for reconsideration with respect to the DCT claims. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk discussed that pleading last month, along with Judge Valerie Caproni’s candid order denying the motion.
“This case continues to linger at the starting block. Or, to use a more fitting metaphor, this case continues to linger as the teams mill about in the players’ tunnels,” Judge Caproni wrote. “Instead of proceeding, discovery and motion practice for these three teams have been further delayed so this Court can deal with these teams’ attempt to take yet another run at how to avoid district court litigation and will, presumably, be delayed further while they pursue yet another appeal.”
Judge Caproni’s remarks proved prescient. While discovery is indeed moving forward as to the BGT portion of Flores’ claim, the NFL has appealed its most recent DCT roadblock to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, as Florio writes in a separate piece. If that court rejects the league’s DCT arguments – as it previously rejected the BGT efforts – the NFL will presumably take another crack at SCOTUS review.
Of course, there is a fundamental difference between this matter’s two triads. While neither Flores nor his co-Plaintiffs, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton, had a contractual relationship with any members of the BGT group, they did have contracts featuring mandatory arbitration language with the DCT group. Whether that will be sufficient for the Second Circuit to issue a different ruling on the DCT portion of the claim – or, failing that, whether it will be sufficient for SCOTUS to grant certiorari – remains to be seen.
Either way, the NFL has clearly tested the patience of the trial judge, who will have at least the BGT portion of the claim, and perhaps the entire lawsuit, in her purview. She is of course under an ethical obligation to remain objective throughout the process, but the league’s doggedness may have become an exemplar of the law of diminishing returns.
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